Confessions

So... last week weekend we went down to Connecticut to have Easter with Elliott's brother's family, and while we were there we went down to NYC too. Well, there's one thing I really can't live without since I discovered it-- Chinese veggie beef jerky. It's really a lot better than the American brands. I've tried Stonewall's Jerquee and Primal Strips (which is made in China anyways). Anyways, long story short, we spent like $13 on veggie beef jerky.

Sneaky "Coalition to Support Plastic Bag Recycling"

Sounds like a progressive, pro-environment group, right? Yeah, not so much. They are "a group that includes seven plastic bag manufacturers, a plastic recycler in Texas and Kevin Kelly, 'a taxpayer, residing in the city of Oakland,' who also is the president of the California Bag and Film Federation." (Bag and Film? I don't know). They are fighting Oakland's ban on nonbiodegradable plastic grocery bags by claiming that the city should have conducted an environmental impact review for the legislation because

the ban will force consumers to use more paper bags, “which are more costly, generate more pollutants during manufacturing and require more energy to produce and recycle than plastic bags.” It also alleges that the continued use of biodegradable plastic bags, allowed under the ban, would “contaminate” recycling programs for disposable plastic bags.

Hmm... I find it odd that they consider the only alternative to plastic bags is paper sacks.
(Full story here.) That link also links to a "paper vs. plastic" interactive presentation (which requires audio, which I don't have at the office) but I hope the answer is "neither-- bring your own cloth bags."

Speaking of plastic shopping bags, the Portland Press Herald reports that "[t]he Maine Legislature passed a joint resolution to encourage the public to reduce the use of disposable plastic shopping bags by 50 percent by Earth Day, April 22." Unfortunately "encourage" basically means, well, damn little. But I was pleasantly surprised at this nugget: "An estimated 10 percent of Maine consumers bring their own shopping bags, according to the House Majority Office." (Full story here)

Offset* your air travel!

I have this specific recollection in college where I went to this musical concert alone (I think some plans to meet up with friends went awry... or I got stood up. Whatever.) I end up sitting next to this elderly gentleman who starts making polite conversation, asking what my major is, etc. I tell him it's environmental engineering, and he ducks his head down and asks me if I know what the biggest environmental cover-up today is. I say no (too many candidates come to mind!), and he replies "the airline industry. They put out 1/3 of the world's manmade carbon emissions." Now, I have a natural distrust of elderly folks as either senile or evil (I blame not having grandparents growing up). So I put it in the back of my head as something to google later. Of course, I never do, but sure enough a few years later this whole airline carbon thing starts really "taking off." Although 30% is waaaaay off. A quick google search revealed very little, except that he estimate is 3% in the EU and 5.5% in the UK. I also found this USAToday article on the growth of air travel and the potential impact on global warming.

I was hunting for airline tickets when I saw this on Orbitz.com:


Sure, it right above "add a magazine subscription," and I'm not sure what actually happens when you purchase the offset (does someone plant a tree? chain themselves to a tree? hug a tree?) but this seems like a good bargain for $5.50, right?

*Disclosure: I am not sold on the idea of anthropogenic global warming, and I'm DEFINITELY not sold on the idea of "offsets."

I blame a right-wing conspiracy

Here's a really interesting Op-ed piece in the NYT written by a midwestern farmer about how the federal government is stifling local-food production:

The commodity farm program effectively forbids farmers who usually grow corn or the other four federally subsidized commodity crops (soybeans, rice, wheat and cotton) from trying fruit and vegetables.

... [A] farmer who grows the forbidden fruits and vegetables on corn acreage not only has to give up his subsidy for the year on that acreage, he is also penalized the market value of the illicit crop, and runs the risk that those acres will be permanently ineligible for any subsidies in the future. (The penalties apply only to fruits and vegetables — if the farmer decides to grow another commodity crop, or even nothing at all, there’s no problem.)...

Why? Because national fruit and vegetable growers based in California, Florida and Texas fear competition from regional producers like myself. Through their control of Congressional delegations from those states, they have been able to virtually monopolize the country’s fresh produce markets.